Fraternity
by reptilia28
Summary: The man sitting across from Dante, reading a tome on demonic lore bore his face, but was otherwise his complete opposite in every way, from his slicked back hairstyle to his deep blue clothing to his aloof, refined demeanor. Post DMC2


I got the Devil May Cry HD Collection last week, so I've been playing that. Lightning struck my brain, so I decided to write this down before I lost it.

I do not own Devil May Cry or its characters. Those belong to CAPCOM.

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><p>Dante was thinking. To many who did not know him, and a few who did, this revelation would come as a surprise to them. But while Dante had always considered himself a man of action, he did use his brain on occasion. And contrary to popular belief, he did <em>not<em> spend all of his time thinking about killing demons, eating pizza, and charming gorgeous women (though he would admit that those topics did take up a healthy chunk of his time). He was also capable of pondering more profound subjects, such as his demonic nature, rapidly accelerating his healing combined with making him age at an almost imperceptible rate making him more or less immortal, and the effect that it would have on those he cared about.

The last person to enter his life – and the first one to leave – was Nero, the spunky young soldier with the devil arm from Fortuna. He had a cocky attitude that reminded Dante of himself at that age, along with an uncanny physical resemblance that he could never quite figure out the source of. One day, about thirty years after they had met, Nero came into Dante's shop, set his brother's sword Yamato down on his desk, and left without a word. Dante never heard from or saw the young devil hunter again, so he could only guess as to Nero's reasons for returning the artifact that had been bequeathed to him so long ago.

Before that incident, the two had kept in regular contact. Nero had married his childhood sweetheart, Kyrie, and had started a family. But while he had barely aged a day in the thirty years they had known each other, she was only human, and the years had begun to take their toll on her body. Dante theorized that Nero believed that if he was no longer in possession of Yamato, then its devilish power would no longer influence him and he would be able to age with his wife. He had his doubts, but hoped that he was wrong.

The second to leave was Lady, the devil hunter that he had met when he was barely a man himself. The two devil hunters had fought with and against each other many times over the years, and though there were times when they wanted to rip each other's throats out for various reasons, he considered her one to be of his closest friends.

Despite being a full human in one of the most dangerous professions in the world, Lady had defied all odds and died peacefully in her sleep at age eighty-eight. By fate or happenstance, she died on what would have been the anniversary of their meeting some seventy years prior. Having never been married, nor borne any children, she had – to his eternal surprise – bequeathed to him her entire, quite sizable fortune (devil hunting was apparently a _very_ lucrative business for anyone not named "Dante"), along with her stash of weapons and other effects, including her prized rocket launcher Kalina Ann. Dante did not use the powerful, but cumbersome weapon often, but maintained it as lovingly as his own twin pistols Ebony and Ivory. Lady had also left a note, given to him by the lawyers responsible for managing her estate: It simply read, "_To the one who showed me that even a devil may cry_". Fortunately for Dante, it was raining the day he received that message, so he could blame his tears on that.

Next was Patty Lowell, a young girl that he had been hired to protect many years ago and had grown to care for like a little sister. She was only eight years old when they first met. As time passed, she made her own way in life, fell in love, moved away and had eventually forgotten about him like so many often do when they grow up. Last he had heard, Patty was a grandmother living in a nursing home, stricken with severe Alzheimer's that had, for better or worse erased all memories of her times with Dante.

The last to leave was Trish, though she did not truly leave like the others did. A demoness borne from the demon emperor Mundus' machinations and crafted in his mother's image, her full demon nature meant that she was just as immune to the passage of time as he was. An independent soul, she would often disappear to strike out on her own, or simply to find herself. She would always return eventually, but her absences would often stretch for months or years at a time, and Dante got lonely without her presence.

Though he had gotten along well enough with Lucia, his last major client, he did not know her long enough to make any real connection with her, so when she returned to her home of Dumary Island to help her people, he did not mourn her departure.

"I can _feel_ you staring at me, Dante."

…Which left the newest addition to his collection of colleagues, which oddly enough was also the one that he had known the longest. A "souvenir" from his latest sojourn into the Underworld, the man sitting across from Dante, reading a tome on demonic lore bore his face, but was otherwise his complete opposite in every way, from his slicked back hairstyle to his deep blue clothing to his aloof, refined demeanor.

"Is there a reason why you find me so fascinating?" Vergil asked, not looking up from his reading.

"Just thinkin', is all," Dante replied with a shrug. This brought out a wry chuckle from his twin.

"You, thinking? Will wonders never cease?" Vergil asked in a deadpan tone, flipping the page in his book.

"Shut up, Vergil," Dante grumbled. No more words were exchanged between the two for some time.

Dante had stumbled onto his elder twin brother when he descended into the Underworld to defeat the powerful demon Argosax the Chaos. After the initial shock wore off, the two brothers reluctantly joined forces to butcher their way through the demon ranks, eventually carving a path back to the human world. They both escaped and Vergil, lacking any other options, decided to live with Dante at the _Devil May Cry_ shop. In the month that he had lived there, barely any words had been exchanged between the two, the tense silence that currently permeated the shop becoming the new norm.

"So…" Dante finally said after several minutes of uncomfortable silence. "You come here often?"

"I am not in the mood for your lame jokes, Dante," Vergil replied. For a while, the only sound was the sound of flipping paper as Vergil read his book.

Flip.

Flip.

Flip.

"So…" Dante broke the silence again, "it's been a while since we've run into each other."

"Almost one hundred years, I believe," Vergil agreed, his eyes not leaving his book.

"A hundred years? Wow," Dante gasped. "But, who's counting, right?" An awkward laugh followed the red-clad devil hunter's words. Vergil grunted vaguely, but made no further comment.

Flip.

Flip.

Flip.

Flip.

"So why did you follow me? I figured you'd be right at home downstairs," Dante said in yet another attempt at small talk.

Without missing a beat, Vergil responded, "I felt like a change of scenery." Dante quirked an eyebrow at his answer, unsure whether or not he was joking; with Vergil, one could never be certain.

Flip.

Flip.

Flip.

"How the hell are you even alive, anyway?" Dante asked. "I thought I killed you."

"You forget, dear brother, that I am a son of Sparda," Vergil replied nonchalantly. "Though our bodies may be destroyed, our souls are made of sturdier stuff. And given enough time, bodies can be replaced…or rebuilt." Dante could not think of a response to that, so he let the matter drop.

Flip.

Flip.

Flip.

Flip.

After what seemed like hours, Dante asked another question, this time only a single word: "Why?"

"Why, what?" Vergil retorted.

"Why did you help me back there? Why did you follow me home? Why the hell are you still here, even though it's so _obvious_ that we want to beat the crap out of each other?" Dante asked, his voice getting increasingly agitated as he rattled off each question. Unlike his previous, immediate responses, Vergil hesitated for a few seconds before he answered.

"Because you're my brother," he finally said. "Isn't that what family does for each other?"

"Bullshit," the red-clad hunter snapped. "Ever since you got it in your head to be like Pops, you've had this major hate-on for me. And 'family' didn't count for jack at Temen-Ni-Gru, when you tried to kill me. _Three times_, I might add!" he shouted, holding up three fingers for emphasis. "So cut the crap, Vergil. Why are you here?" Almost a full minute went by without answer as Vergil stared contemplatively at his page. Finally, he marked his page and set his book down, laying his hands on his lap.

"You want to know why I'm here, Dante, why I helped you?" the blue-clad man asked. Dante nodded in response. "Very well, then. Sometime during my tenure as Mundus' lapdog and beyond, I suppose you could say that I had an epiphany." Dante twirled his hand, silently prompting Vergil to continue. "My whole life, I've tried to gain power, to be more like Father, and every time I was met with failure. But then, in the depths of Hell, I heard that you had defeated Mundus. Decades later, when I saw you fighting those hordes, and you Devil Triggered…I felt the power exuding from you. I could tell that somehow, you had managed to become more powerful than even Father.

"Make no mistake, I still believe that humans are worthless vermin, deserving nothing more than a swift death," he continued, prompting a snort from Dante. "But if Father found them to be worth saving, and if you, humanity's champion, have managed to not only match, but surpass him in power, then perhaps there is something worthy about humans after all. And I figured that if I followed you, then in time I could figure out what that 'something' is and harness it for myself. Does that satisfy your curiosity?" After spending a moment pondering this confession, Dante nodded in satisfaction. Suddenly, a grin grew on his face like he had just realized something hilarious.

"So basically, you're hanging around me in the hopes that some of my mojo will rub off on you?" he asked, his grin threatening to split his face in two. Vergil scowled and roughly snatched his book up before opening it back to his page.

"A crude way of putting it, but in essence yes," he ground out through clenched teeth, as if admitting such caused him physical pain. "Now that this little heart-to-heart is at an end, can I please read my book in peace?" he added tersely.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Dante said dismissively, propping his feet up on his desk. A few more minutes passed in silence before the phone rang loudly, causing Vergil to growl in frustration. Dante stomped his foot on the desk, causing the receiver to leap into the air before he snatched it. "Devil May Cry," he greeted, grabbing a pen and notepad. "Uh huh…Uh huh…Where at…? Okay, I'll be there in twenty." Dropping the phone back onto its cradle, Dante grabbed his trusty pistols Ebony and Ivory and holstered them before slipping his broadsword Rebellion onto his back. "Some idiot's opened up a Hell Gate downtown and it needs sealing. Wanna come with?" he offered.

For a few seconds, Vergil stared at his book as he considered the offer. Finally, he marked his page and set it down before grabbing Yamato.

"I suppose I could use the exercise," he admitted. "It's better than sitting around here doing nothing, at any rate."

"That's the spirit!" Dante cheered. With a dramatic swish of his coat, he kicked open the doors of his shop with a bombastic, "Let's rock, baby!" Vergil followed his overexcited twin brother, taking care to close and lock the doors behind him before they rode off to their destination. When they finally arrived, a stone monolith thirty feet in height stood in the middle of a park, a deep red gash running down the middle. The area was already swarming with dozens of apish Msria, Goat Clan, and bird-like Puia. "Race ya, Verge! One with the fewest kills has to buy dinner!" Dante challenged, drawing his pistols to gun down a pair of Goatlings. Vergil rolled his eyes in exasperation before drawing his attention to a pack of Msria. In a flash of blue, the half-devil found himself in the center of the beasts, Yamato's blade gleaming brightly in the moonlight. As the sword reentered its sheath with a sharp _click_, the group of ape-like demons crumbled into a pile of blood and dismembered body parts.

"I believe that's five to your two," Vergil declared. "You're getting slow, Dante."

"Oh-ho, it's on now!" Dante shouted, grabbing Rebellion and proceeding to hack at another group of Goatlings. The two brothers proceeded to carve through demons by the score, bathing the ground in their blood. "This is fantastic!" Dante whooped, laughing like a madman. "It's great to have you back, bro!" As he sliced through the neck of a Blood Goat, Vergil's cool veneer was broken as a slight grin tugged at his lips.

"It's good to be back…brother."

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><p>There you go, my take on the "Vergil is alive and a good guy" trope that seems to be so popular on this site. I hope that I kept both of them more-or-less in character.<p>

Don't forget to leave a review.


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